Lucifer sighed as he completed the bunker he was working on. He stopped counting and 500 and the end seemed nowhere in sight, whoever said that there aren't many elves deserves a punch to the throat he thought.

At first he used the new technique taught by the elves to dig a small pipe between the homes, then cut out a bunker section and reinforce the walls into dungeon stone, But this was taking forever so he just started connecting the elven bunkers to the pipe which would put them under his domain, then he could just reinforce the already existing walls. This proved to be far faster, but still, mind-numbingly boring.

Selenia managed to curb some of the boredom with conversation, he asked her why she doesn’t go back to reunite with friends and family, however, she flatly refused and stayed glued to his side even if they sat there in silence.

It would take nearly a week for the army to arrive in Deepmist Forrest and Selenia only spent the first day away from Lucifer, She said that she was going to meet her parents and she came back half a day later without saying a word about it.

Lucifer was curious but chose not to pry, instead he focused on efficiency, he could split his focus onto several simple tasks at the same time, one part focused on connecting all the elven bunkers via a pipe network, another focused on expanding his domain which filled the bunkers, then the last free part of his mind devoted itself to hardening the walls.

This continued on for two days. Sometimes he would move locations to get closer to what he was working on, other times he spent hours in the same spot in a meditative stance. Selenia was never far away from him for more than a few minutes, he asked her if she wanted him to teleport her back but she declined.

She wanted to see more of her homeland, however, she found herself unfamiliar with both the places and the people. Elves she had known as a child were completely different from how she remembered them, her parents were a far cry from what she remembered them to be. Perhaps they had changed after they gave up their daughter, or perhaps they were only like she remembered them in her imagination.

Lucifer felt something and stopped working, a strange shiver went down his spine and he knew an Earthmail was coming through, most of the time he missed the event but he always had a small part of his mind focused on that feeling.

His dungeon sense could feel the energy entering his dungeon through the mana well and efficiently moving along his corridors. It even moved through walls when it was faster to do so.

After several moments the strange energy hit his core and information flooded his consciousness, however, this time was different, the amount of information flooded his consciousness drowning it.

Suddenly Lucifers seated body started foaming at the mouth and dropped to the floor, Selenia who was meditating by his side jumped up and checked on him. There was no pulse, the body was dead.

Since this wasn’t his real body she didn’t panic, instead she jumped into one of the elven bunkers that she knew was in Lucifers domain, then loudly asked, “Lucifer what happened”… There was no response.

Either Lucifer wasn't paying attention or some bad had happened. She called out a few more times with no response, she exited the bunker and double checked his body and still found no life signs, she was sure that Lucifer couldn't control a dead body but she still checked again.

Moments later a few elves crowded over after seeing Selenia's flushed appearance, they were mostly male and she could recognize some of them as the bugs that kept buzzing around her whenever she was away from Lucifer.

“FUCK OFF” Selenia growled with a little more aggression than she intended, that's when she realized that her heart was beating like a drum. She ignored it and slipped on her enchanted leg armor and boots from a storage ring for extra speed then dashed off towards the tunnel.

Meanwhile Lucifer was somewhere black, at first he thought he was dead again, but it didn’t feel the same, he could still vaguely feel his dungeon.

After floating around in the darkness and finding no answered he focused on the dungeon and slowly felt his consciousness pushing through some sort of barrier.

Bang, he slipped through and everything became bright, he looked around and found himself in the core room. He could feel the core, but the connection to it felt very weak.

Lucifer contemplated his options for a moment before deciding on reentering the core, he didn’t like what being a dungeon does to his mind, but all his powers came from the dungeon and he was reasonably sure that his soul was inside the core.

He flew directly into the core and felt immense resistance, he pushed harder and after several minutes he felt a snap, and all the resistance dissipated.

Once inside his sense of the dungeon suddenly became clearer, it was like he was feeling his dungeon through thick mud before he returned to the core and now it was crystal clear.

He could see Ellora along with a few of her direct subordinates escorting Arthus’ army through the tunnel, strange he didn’t tell her to do that. Further up the tunnel Lucifer could feel Selenia’s presence rapidly moving towards the dungeon.

Her hair was whipping behind her as she powered through the tunnel on mana enhanced legs. Lucifer though her expression at the moment was rather cute once he entered one of his spare bodies.

Selenia was moving as fast as her mana regeneration would allow her when suddenly she heard Lucifer's voice, “I’m fine no need to kill yourself running to my aid hehe”, she slowed down and leaned against a wall while wiping sweat from her head, “...”.

“stay there, I’ll open a portal for you to come back,” said Lucifer.

“we aren't going to finish the shelters” replied Selenia

“later”, a portal appeared in-front of Selenia and she stepped through into the core room.

She was momentarily surprised when she found herself in the core room because noone is allowed here normally. Lucifer saw her looking around and answered her unspoken question, “I need you to look at something, can you see anything different with my core, anything all”

Selenia walked around the glowing blue stone and replied, “its bigger than I remember it, the light isn’t as dull and the runes floating around it, hmm some are dull, about a quarter of them don’t shine as brightly and have a slight green tinge, also the core is humming slightly” her ears twitched a few more times as she listened to the core.

…

Lucifer asked, “do you think Arthus can be trusted”

“trusted for what,” she asked.

“because of this I will have to deal with the Magedom as soon as possible, so I will heal Arthus’ injuries”

Selenia thought for a while before giving her opinion, “while Arthus may be a threat once he is healed, I don’t think he will turn on us as long as it's for the good of Swadia”

“how much of a threat will he be”

she answered, “some of the adventurers I worked with used to be in the leader of the city watches army”

“Wolfram” Lucifer confirmed.

“yes, and he is the kings most trusted general, they fought side by side during the kings rise to the throne and I worked with several who fought directly under their command. They said that Although Arthus isn’t a great commander he was a powerful warrior, my friend once said that you could always find the king wherever the fighting was thickest, and if you didn’t find him there you would find him amongst the enemy elites cutting a path to the enemy commander. And lastly, most soldiers who have seen him fight would put him on par if not more powerful than Merlin of the arcane university”

“then what makes you think he wouldn’t turn against us,” asked Lucifer.

“as many stories, there are of his might in battle there are stories of his kindness to his men and people. All the widows of his men are well taken care of as opposed to the duchies, he makes sure that his armies are well stocked with supplies and not just supplies used for war, and most importantly he doesn't sacrifice his men unnecessarily against things like mages.”

Lucifer said, “I take it most commanders send waves of bad infantry to wear down the mages mana supplies”

Selenia nodded, “yes it's a common strategy, but not to wear down their mana, commanders would fill their mages with potions until they are nearly dead from sickness so mana isn’t an issue. The idea is to have mana interference build up in the area until magic is nearly impossible to cast then attacking with your main force”

“and this works” laughed Lucifer

“yes, but not without a price, other than the lives lost trying to get spells out of the mages there is serious environmental damage. Between the Magedom and Korek Kingdoms lies a large desert which wasn’t there before, it formed after all the battles slowly changed the ambient mana into a chaotic mess. Its been nearly 10 years since the last battle and there is still a sandstorm that won't dissipate there.”

Lucifer thought for a moment before saying, “I’ll teleport you a little in front of Arthus, go bring him back here”

“what are you going to be doing?” asked Selenia.

“I have more important matters to attend to” replied Lucifer before he teleported Selenia away and began researching his core, now he was glad that he spent so much time researching his core.